


Oxygen

by DistantStorm



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Ghosts doing the Traveler's work, Grief/Mourning, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-15 20:23:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18080273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantStorm/pseuds/DistantStorm
Summary: Fight on. You're still breathing.What leads up to a much needed conversation between the Vanguard, out in the rain.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Read the lore for Oxygen SR3 Here: https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/oxygen-sr3
> 
> Spoilers for some of the more subtle bits of Joker's Wild. Bungie's really blessed us with all sorts of wonderful lore this season. Join me on tumblr (distant--storm) or twitter (distantstorm_) if you'd like to talk about it.

Ikora stands alone most of her day. That does not bother her. It is usually quiet around her. She requires it to think about hundreds of things all at once.

Though… It has been far quieter, lately.

She never noticed - never took the few seconds it would take to notice, before today - that the pairs and trios, even the stray quartet of Guardians go silent and step widely around her station. That they look away instead of chattering to her. Even her own. There have been three new Warlocks added to their ranks this year. Sadia, Rowan - or was it Rolland? - and, and..

Ikora frowns. She cannot recall the third name, nor does she remember the face of the newest Guardian brought in from the wilds to the Tower.

That is not like her. That has never been like her. Her Warlocks, even the ones who defy her have always been like children (with the exception of the occasional strange cousin here or there, considering she's not a Dark-Age Risen).

She sighs.

“You know, I tell you at least once a day to stop your moping because there will be consequences,” Ophiuchus, her Ghost, says, through the link they share. “Your new ones are Sadia, Rowan-5, and the one you could not recall is Nahomy. She is petite and looks barely old enough to shoot a gun. Freckles, dark skin, and frizzy curls. Shaxx says she's a nightmare in the Crucible.”

Ikora nods. Ophiuchus can tell he's already lost her attention.

“Did they always avoid me like this?”

“No,” He sighs. “It started when you started yelling at them for disturbing you.”

“I would never-”

“You did,” He interrupts, his tone flat. “Hawthorne spent half an hour talking the poor girl down after you unloaded on her.” He phases in front of her, to see her facial expression. “That was a week after Cayde died. It only got worse after that. You conducted yourself horribly through the Dawning. Eva was too polite to say anything, but she was fed up with you.”

“And my Hidden?”

“Quieter than usual.”

Her sarcastic drawl seems to echo despite the quiet between them. “Afraid of me too, are they?”

“See?” He swivels around her. “This is why they avoid you.”

Her brow furrows. She hasn't been that horrible, has she?

Her Ghost, her partner, reads her mind, or perhaps the question is etched into her features: the downcast eyes, the pensive pull of her lips into a frown. “Ikora, you've been positively dreadful. Even to me. I will admit I am used to it, so it does not bother me, but you might consider-”

“Leave me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She whirls around in a narrow billowing of robes. “I said,” Her voice cracks, “Leave me.”

Ophiuchus sighs. “As you wish.” Never in all their centuries together, not as a young Guardian, nor even when the Traveler's Light was ripped from her soul has Ikora allowed anyone to see her tears. Cayde's death was the closest she'd come, but, even then, she held back.

Ophiuchus loitered around the Bazaar, watching from afar. Hawthorne's bird eyed him suspiciously, but that went both ways. Neither trusted the other. Around them, the early spring air was warmer than usual, the air thick and ready to cool off, to yield to the promise of rain.

Eventually, when Ikora's tense posture - of course she knew he was still keeping an eye on her, Ikora always knew - got to him, he fluttered with a loud enough drone into the Courtyard that when he turned, almost out of sight but not quite, Ikora's shoulders dropped just enough that he knew she was finally allowing herself to cry.

He lingered a few seconds longer, even if she would be furious later. She is still his Guardian, and will always be the best and brightest Light to him, no matter how they bicker or disagree. He wishes he could help, that she would let him comfort her, even if he would feel awkward and out of his depth about it.

It started to rain.

-/

“Would you please go talk to her?”

Zavala regards Amanda with a cool, almost disinterested gaze. “I have things to do,” He tells her.

She scoffs, her boots leaving a trail of water droplets as she traverses the floor. “I'm startin’ ta think you're right,” She says, and there's a hard edge to her tone that’s both anger and defensiveness. “Maybe they don't need a Vanguard. Seein’ as neither of ya are of any use.”

“Who told you to say that?” He asks, looking up at her, suitably baited by her words.

The blonde toes the floor with her boot.

“Amanda.”

She bites her lip and squeezes her eyes shut. He's reminded of a time, not that long ago when she was far smaller - wobbling on a prosthetic that she had yet to grow into - and had been caught parroting what others had said. The memory is a murky kind of bittersweet, as if he's seeing it underwater instead of in his mind's eye.

“Tell me.”

Amanda sighs. She’s never been able to keep up the charade for long. “Alright, but you ain't gonna like it.”

He blinks, waiting. She fidgets.

“It was Hawthorne.” Amanda looks down at the floor before taking a breath and forcing herself to meet his gaze. She's always been the courageous sort. “An’ I'm sure she'll tell you so herself, if she hasn't already. Because she's startin’ to believe it.” Amanda takes a breath that's nearly a gasp. “I don't wanna,” She admits, sounding sad, “But ya sure aren't givin’ us anything to go on.”

How brave she is, Zavala thinks, and yet, so emotional. “Would it truly be the end of the world?” His detachment feels like a strange itch under his skin, a prickle of something that's unusual. He does not realize he's spoken aloud.

Amanda shakes her head, her green eyes darting back and forth between his overly bright ones, as if looking for something only to realize that it isn't there. “Ya know what, forget I said anything. Never shoulda’ bothered.” She turns on her heel to leave.

“Amanda, wait.”

“I-” Her fists clench at her sides, so tightly that he can hear the sound of her leather gloves rubbing together. “No, Zavala. Ever since Cayde died, the two of you’ve acted like you've lost everything. You still have each other. Ya got the rest of us, too, if you'd get your heads out of your asses 'n stop pushin’ everybody away.”

Any reply he could have formulated is cut off by her striding away. It's a good thing, though. Zavala truly had no idea what to say. Amanda is one to seek forgiveness or ask permission. This time, she begs neither.

He sits in numb silence until Ophiuchus drifts into command, dripping from the rain.

The Commander forces himself to speak after the Ghost shifts and casts off the moisture from his shell. His voice sounds tired, defeated to his own ears. “What does Ikora need?”

The Ghost swivels in midair, slowly. “I doubt she could tell you, if you were to ask.”

“Then, forgive me for sounding rude, but... why are you here?”

“Because I believe she needs you.”

-/

Earlier:

Ophiuchus spent the evening wandering about in the rain. To be honest, he didn't enjoy it very much. He preferred to linger under the awnings of the Bazaar or under the knotted tree in the Courtyard, but others were there, seeking shelter from the spring storm.

Wandering aimlessly reminded him of _before_. Before he had a purpose. When he was lost, set adrift in the universe, cast off from the Traveler and forced to search for someone he did not know. Forced to rely on a feeling. No rationality, only sentimentality - a strange fluctuating feeling, a pull from a place deep within him that had no name.

He did not like _before_.

He remembers very vividly seeing her bones, feeling the call of a soul not yet completely stripped away from the physical realm. Bringing her back was something he wished he could watch on a loop. Her soul was so very beautiful as his Light reconstructed her being around it. Sad, earnest. Watchful. Yearning. Intelligent.

She rose from her first death quietly, without fuss or shock. Not the pomp and circumstance he had witnessed with other Ghosts and their partners. It was as if she'd known what had happened.

When he explained as best he knew how, she was studious, interested. Did not interrupt. But the very millisecond after he had finished? She questioned everything.

Ophiuchus has never considered himself an emotional Ghost. But when she looked at him with that inquisitive gaze, her eyebrows drawing together while she peppered him with an interrogation that was so well thought out he couldn't believe she was only hours old, he turned his optic toward toward the Traveler, the only other guiding Light he'd ever known before the one before him and said a silent prayer of thanks.

She was perfect, he’d thought. Perfect and his. He would endeavor to do her right.

It’s that single irrationally emotional thought for a being who is wholly not emotional, that promise he’d made her so many years ago that has him worked up - there has to be something he can do, he thinks - that he zips back to the Bazaar without a second thought.

He tucks himself under her chin, heedless of the water that runs down her face or her gasp of surprise. “I refuse to let you be alone,” He tells her, feeling woefully unsure of himself - he doesn’t like this, it’s awkward, they thrive on logic, not being emotional messes - and she cups her hands around him as if they are some blubbering, sentimental Guardian/Ghost duo that expresses love and devotion at every possible moment.

They’ve gone decades without speaking, they are both prideful and curt and neither of them will ever admit they’re wrong. But she’s his Guardian. And no matter how many days they refuse to speak to one another or disagreements they have, she is his and he will come for her, always.

It’s with a start that he realizes she’s still sobbing, her fingers are cold and he’s not sure if it’s from the void or the rain, though he’d suspect both have had their hand to play.

“I don’t even know where to start,” She tells him in a muffled whisper. Something inside him eases that she isn’t mad at him for disrupting her, though he’d never admit it. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

“Yes you do. You’re just grieving,” He replies, as reassuring as he can while maintaining a modicum of control over his emotional state. “It’s going to be alright, Ikora.”

“My students evade me, the other Guardians fear me, and my Fireteam? If I am to believe what I’ve realized is - I don’t even know how Zavala sits beside me in Consensus meetings. We’ve been behaving like children,” She whispers out into the coming night, her head shaking in self contempt. “The things I’ve said - to those under our jurisdiction, no less - I do not deserve to be their leader. I’ve lost touch with what I am, what they need me to be.”

“You’re no less human because I can resurrect you,” Ophiuchus reminds her. “And humans are prone to having feelings and making mistakes. Ghosts too, as much as I’ll never admit it.”

She looks down at him, brushes one of the fins of his shell carefully and releases him back into the rain.

“I think I’d like to be alone a while longer, Ophiuchus.” And then quieter, “Please.”

He bobs in an affirmative. They probably won’t have another moment like this for a few centuries. He purposely hovers near her ear before he goes. “I won’t be far.”


	2. Chapter 2

Mist coils and creeps low to the deckplates, the rain relenting into a trickling, steady patter on the scaffolding and awnings as he passes by. It is cold. The cold will not kill them - this cold, at least, it is not severe enough - and even if it were to, it would be an easy fix.

Zavala sighs to himself as he walks. He used to say he could not remember the last time he died. For the longest time, he could not. But, now… he still recalls the frantic palpitations of his heart jolted back to life, of terrified Guardians crouching behind rubble to assist his Ghost because her fast would never be fast enough.

He does not remember the pain. Compared to what came after, that death might have been the most painless one he'd ever had.

Each footstep seems to echo through the mostly deserted Tower. Most of the Lightless called it quits earlier, when it started pouring, and the few Guardians who remained gave him a wide berth if they passed, or stuck to their covered corners in the Courtyard. Their wary glances were obvious, despite the cover of evening rain.

He wondered when that stopped bothering him, when he stopped approaching the uneasy to assuage them of their fears that he was some great tyrant. He was not their enemy. A leader, sure. A mentor, now that was a title he preferred. But, these days? Seemed to Zavala that all he is, is a washed up politician. His Ghost assured him otherwise, but it was no secret that instead of battling enemy combatants, he spent his time trying to fight his way through red tape.

Perhaps that, combined with Cayde’s passing, created this sense of sloth within him.

This is not like him, though. Even when things were difficult, he held on. This was… different.

He stopped in his tracks, barely a step into the cover of the tunnel-like hallway between the Courtyard and the Bazaar. A frame continued sweeping at the edge of an alcove nearby, paying him no mind.

Being… in the position he is, fulfilling the role that he does has consequences. He cannot honor his own feelings. No matter how he might want to, his feelings are always secondary to the good of the Guardians he commands, to humanity which they serve.

There are three sets of eyes on his back. Two Hunters and a Warlock. He'd seen them as he passed by. He breathes in. Turns around.

One of the Hunters bolts, darting away without a look back. The remaining Hunter and the Warlock flinch. The Warlock rises from his perch.

“Good evening, Commander,” He says, in the gravelly-drone of an exo. The Hunter elbows him in the side when silence spans between them.

The Hunter whispers loudly - too loudly. They must be new. “Moron, you're a Warlock. He probably thinks you're spying on him for Ikora.”

“Do people even do that?” The Warlock hisses back. “I don't even know what they're fighting about, just that they don’t like each other!”

“Ahem.”

The Hunter pops up, and the two Guardians stand at attention. “Er, sorry, Sir.”

“You're both new to the Tower.” It's a statement, not a question.

“Three months, Sir.”

At a nudge from the Warlock that's payback for the earlier elbow, the Hunter gasps, “Five for me.”

“And your friend?”

“Somewhere in-between, we think.”

Zavala tucks one hand into the palm of the other behind his back. “I would…” The two new Guardians share a weary look. “Your friend likely thinks I've thrown you off the Tower for… something,” He attempts to joke, equally as wary. His shoulders rise and fall, in a shrug that's so unlike how he conducts himself regularly.

“I-” He frowns. “You have come into our midst at a chaotic time. If you are having any difficulties adjusting to the Tower, I would gladly make time for you. Your friend as well.”

“I dunno,” The Hunter says. She tips her head up so that he can see the glow of Awoken eyes beneath her hood. “He’s twitchy. Makes me seem as composed as this one by comparison,” She drawls. “Besides, someone’s keeping an eye out for him.”

“Yes. Hawth-Ow!”

“He's being kept in line,” The Hunter says curtly before turning to her friend and using that same, overtly loud, hissing stage whisper. “You keep quiet. Just because I told you doesn't mean it's common knowledge.”

“In any case,” Zavala says, after pretending not to hear every word, “I'll leave you to your secrets, but know that my door is always open. Regardless of subclass. Or rumors about whom I may or may not be at odds with.”

The Warlock's optics glimmer brightly at him, and he looks at the Hunter, as if to say why suffer?. “I appreciate that, Sir.”

Zavala nods. “Stay out of trouble,” He tells them, like a parent to his unruly brood. They both tip their heads in nods that are far less fearful than they’d been. The Titan Vanguard turns on his heel and leaves them.

He should feel guilty about taking longer to get to Ikora. And yet, he does not. To be honest with himself, he’s only going for Ophiuchus. And even then, it’s only out of a sense of duty - to what, right now, he isn’t sure, it isn’t like he’d consider them a fireteam much less a team in general - and yet, that same sense of duty still has him continuing to the end of the cobblestone and brick that separates the Moroccan-styled Bazaar from the rest of the more utilitarian Tower.

The Bazaar is quiet, save for the tinkling pitter-patter of rain. Darker, too, the lanterns dimmed to their usual setting but distorted by mist and fog. He sees her immediately, fuschia-violet robes such a bright contrast to everything around her. Her hands cover her face.

She does not notice him, does not turn to face him. The lack of reaction is unusual. He focuses on her. Sees the tiny tremor of her shoulders, the great gasping breaths that rack her frame.

Something deep, deep down inside of Zavala cracks.

He has been furious with her, as much as he tried not to be, for pushing him away. For not understanding that they have a job to do, despite their grief. For plenty of other things she's said and done since three became two. For never, ever discussing things with him, the way they used to.

But, he knows he is not blameless. He hasn't made it easy, either. He's snipped at her Warlocks who linger around him during the daylight hours, been stone-faced and passive-aggressive during the handful of meetings in which they've been forced to see each other. He is better than that.

They are better than that.

This grief will swallow them whole if don't make their peace with it. Cayde… he'll never come back. It wasn't either of their fault. There is nothing they could have said, nothing they could have done that would have prevented Cayde from sneaking off to the Prison of Elders.

He trudges forward loudly enough to startle her. She flinches and turns, a hand still over her mouth while the other moves to allow her to see better. “Ophiuchus sent you,” She calls, muffled by the rain. He cannot tell if it's a question or a statement.

“He may have suggested it,” Zavala concedes, coming closer still. “You're crying,” He comments.

Ikora frowns. The fingers fanned over her mouth come together and she turns away. “I am not,” She tells him.

“Yes,” He prods, more stoic than intended, “You are. You are allowed to-”

“I am not!” She intones defensively, as a bolt of lightning flashes through the sky above.

“For once,” He bellows, “Would it kill you to let go of your damned pride?”

Ikora's eyes flicker to his as thunder rumbles between them. The rain is really coming down now. She scoffs, then drops her arms. “Fine. I was crying. Are you happy?”

Zavala shakes his head. “No.”

“Then, what do you want from me?” Instead of petulant or spiteful, her voice hedges upon desperate. If it weren't for the rain, Zavala thinks he'd see fresh tears welling in her eyes. It makes his stomach churn. “I can't change what's happened, and I don't know-”

“Ikora.”

“I'm just - I’m so hurt and so… angry that I don't even know what normal feels like anymore, and we should have, we should be-”

“Ikora.”

“You don't owe me anything. Just go, Zavala.”

“Ikora,” He warns again. The rain falls harder.

She doesn't look at him, but sniffs, “After how I've treated you, how can you even bear to be near me?”

The Commander steps close to her, boots half on the now wet circular rug that demarcates her space in the Tower. “I have not been… easy to be around, either,” He replies. He makes sure to keep his eyes forward, on the Traveler so that Ikora can inspect him of her own volition.

“I don't - This,” She throws her hands up, frustrated.

“I have been furious with you,” Zavala admits. His voice is odd and detached. “I am furious with you,” He revises. Ikora squeezes her eyes shut; Zavala can see it from the corner of his eye. “We’ve had the argument time and again. The Shore, the Barons…”

“They could all hang if it meant we could have Cayde back,” Ikora whispers.

Zavala breathes in and looks up at the sky. “You don’t mean that. You’ve always protected the innocent.”

“I want to,” She admits.

The rain beats down on them. A few moments pass.

“Me too.”

Ikora turns to him. “You? That isn’t - it’s not like you.”

“What even is that, these days,” He mutters to himself.

Ikora sighs. “For… for what it’s worth,” She says slowly, carefully. “I’m sorry.”

“We walk a line,” He replies. “One where what we want, what we feel doesn’t matter to them.” He gestures out at the City. “They mourned a leader. We-”

“He was our friend.”

Zavala blinks slowly, his lips pulling to the side in a sad, sad smile. “He was our friend,” He agrees. He reaches a hand out to her, hesitantly. “We were not given what we required, were not allowed to grieve like we should, to forgive ourselves for - I should not have, no matter how we disagreed on how to proceed…” He sighs. There are a million things he could say right now, so much bubbling up, threatening to overwhelm him. The feelings he’s locked away... “Ikora, I-” She takes his hand in hers, gives it a squeeze. The gesture leaves him breathless. He realizes now just how starved for understanding they’ve been. “I am sorry, too.”

For a while, there is nothing but quiet breath and cleansing rain.

Ikora releases his hand and looks up at the trellis beside them. “Would you,” She begins to ask, and he turns to look at her, so unguarded, so hopeful that it hits her more than any punch in the gut ever could. No matter how many times someone lets him down, he always, always forgives. More than that, though, she’s reminded: They’re not alone. They have each other. “Would you care to sit with me awhile?”

He smiles, and Ikora finds her lips curling up ever so slightly in return. “I thought you would never ask.”


End file.
